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Wine is a language enjoyed and learned through immersion\u2014through tasting, listening, and returning to the glass again and again. Much of my own wine education has happened in wine bars, walking in vineyards with patient producers, and accepting generous pours in small cellars where stories are shared as freely as the wine. I don\u2019t come to wine through years of restaurant service or access to constant trade tastings, but as a writer shaped by curiosity, conversation, and experience over time.<\/p>\n
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So here\u2019s the question worth asking: what happens when some of the most important reference points\u2014the legendary benchmark bottles\u2014are not accessible to most tasters?<\/p>\n
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I\u2019ve come close to these cultural landmarks \u2013 wines that have been distinguished for generations as symbols of craft and history, shaping our understanding of greatness. P\u00e9trus. Domaine de la Roman\u00e9e-Conti. Ch\u00e2teau d\u2019Yquem. Today, many are out of reach for most wine lovers. Even sommeliers, whose jobs depend on building broad tasting experience, may encounter these bottles only rarely, through occasional trade tastings, secondhand notes, or conversations passed through mentors.<\/p>\n
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And this matters because, at its core, wine is learned through being present, not just admiration. When wines exist as stories instead of experiences, something breaks down. Conversations about balance, texture, and age-worthiness begin to rely on description instead of memory. So what actually shapes a palate when the supposed benchmarks are largely out of reach?<\/p>\n
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A sommelier friend once told me that to be a great wine writer, I should taste as much wine as possible. So that\u2019s what I do, taking professional development very seriously. I taste as often as I can, exploring wine shops and bars, sometimes splurging on bottles that stretch the budget. I seek out trade tastings when I can. I buy wine, basically building a personal library of experiences. Over time, these wines and the people around them have become my real education. Wines get shared, talked about, revisited, tasted again. They stay alive in my memory because they\u2019re part of life, part of actual conversations.<\/p>\n
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And through all that tasting, I\u2019ve developed what I think of as my own North Star wines\u2014bottles I return to that orient my understanding of what\u2019s possible. It might be a Vouvray, a Barolo, a Blanc de Blancs, or a Pomerol. Some people have one anchor wine. Some have several. But these wines function like a personal library of books you return to with pages you\u2019ve dog-eared. When these guiding wines exist, what matters isn\u2019t the price or the pedigree \u2013 it\u2019s the accessibility. These wines drive discovery through repetition. They evolve with you. And as a wine writer, this approach gives me the lived experience I can leverage to communicate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
This does not diminish benchmark wines. They remain powerful symbols of excellence, aspiration, and history, commanding extraordinary prices and global attention. They still guide and inspire us, yet more often now as ideas rather than experiences \u2013 wines we reference, study, and admire, but rarely taste often enough to fully anchor our sense of place in the wine universe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The wine landscape is evolving. The new benchmarks are often those that stay present and accessible\u2014wines that reflect terroir and intention, that people can actually return to. Wines that get talked about, remembered, and shared over a meal. These living wines, not untouchable icons, increasingly shape the conversation.<\/p>\n
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As wine culture shifts, influence becomes less about exclusivity and more about presence. For sommeliers, it\u2019s about fluency, curiosity, and lived experience as much as access to rare bottles. For writers, it means building expertise through engagement with wine\u2019s culture, people, places, and the bottles we can return to. For the vast majority of producers, this shift is validating. Their wines can be someone\u2019s North Star. Making wines meant to be opened, shared, and remembered becomes an art form in itself. Accessibility is not a compromise; it\u2019s cultural power.<\/p>\n
And for the general wine enthusiast, our largest group of tasters, this means everything. It means inclusion. It drives curiosity with open arms.<\/p>\n
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Wine culture has learned to navigate with and around its traditional benchmarks. Some tasters find their own North Star, wherever it lives on the spectrum. Others keep exploring. What matters is the tasting, the returning, the witnessing. In the end, wine without witnesses is only potential. With them, wine is everything.<\/p>\n
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